The president is nominating James Comey, Deputy Attorney General in the Bush administration to head the FBI. Mr. Comey was at the center of the opposition to the warrantless wiretapping attempt of team Bush. Mr. Comey has integrity as he was one of the few in the prior Machiavellian administration who was willing to quit his job rather than take part in an end run around due process principle against warrantless wiretapping. Comey possessed strong ethical character and knew what he thought was legal and what was not. He was so opposed to what Gonzalez and Card were determined to do he won the race to Bush Attorney General Ashcroft's hospital bed to persuade him to oppose it. It prompted many others in that administration to threaten a mass exodus if Comey did not get there in time. This could have brought the Bush administration to its knees.
Mr. Comey is an honest man so much so that Ashcroft raising his head from a hospital bed, on the edge of death, said no to Gonzales and Card in their Constitutional subversion attempt. He put Comey in charge.
The Obama nomination of Comey I speculate is reflective that the president in essence agrees with the Comian constitutional interpretation of due process. In practice we know, though, this administration has reinvigorated that for which the Bush administration advocated. However, to many of my liberal compatriots' chagrin on this issue, I trust this president. I trust him because he is a constitutional scholar, I trust him because I truly think he would not be leaping across the civil libertarian bow that seemingly, before his ascension to the presidency, went against his fundamental creed and I trust this president to do what he thinks is necessary to safeguard the nation.
Comfortable discussion of the intricacies of due process Constitutional issues is a healthy endeavor. It is a luxury when one sees up close and personal the annihilative risks to which the nation is exposed by those who want to bring it down. When faced with the life of the nation and the lives within it there are, I believe, times when the nuances of due process as it pertains to terrorist activities must entail granting the executive branch the immense power to suspend even those safeguards which have been the foundational bedrock of the republic.
I believe the recommendation of Mr. Comey to the apex of FBI power is symbolic that this president wants to return and adhere to the Comian constitutionally interpretive due process principle even if at times he has chosen, I believe, out of necessity to turn his back on it.
